As the use of computers in both the workforce and personal life has increased, so has the desire to allow for easier use of them. Many operating systems today utilize a windows based configuration of application programs. Information is displayed on a display screen in what appears to be several sheets of paper.
As such, application windows are a core user interface facility of all graphical user interface (GUI) systems. While application windows may vary in appearance across systems, they share many common attributes such as the ability to be resized and repositioned and to exist among other application windows associated with different applications. Together, multiple application windows can appear simultaneously on the screen, layered on top of each other, typically represented by the order each window was last accessed by the user.
When multiple windows are open at the same time, locating, navigating and switching quickly to the desired window can be difficult. For example, the desired window may be partially or fully occluded by other open windows. Also, the desired window may be minimized or hidden. These scenarios are commonly referred to as window management problems.
Window selection interfaces have been proposed to resolve such window management problems by minimizing the necessity to sort through the various open windows.
Window management solutions in the Windows XP brand operating system by Microsoft Corporation include the Taskbar and Alt-Tab key combination, which each presents a list of open windows in a representation different from the primary window. In the Taskbar, a control representing each application window is duplicated and presented in a manner that avoids overlapping, allowing for an indirect mechanism to select a specific application window even if the window is presently obscured. The Alt-Tab keyboard combination invokes a secondary UI facility that, like the Taskbar control, presents a duplicate list of all open and available application windows from which the user can select from. These interfaces however, do not allow the user to view content of a window without the window being selected.
Recently, Apple Computing, Inc. introduced Exposé in the MAC OS X brand operating system. Exposé provides a user with the ability to display all open windows as thumbnails on the desktop. In operation, when the user types the F9 key, Exposé tiles all the open windows. Namely, Exposé scales the windows down to a size such that all the open windows are displayed in a non-overlapping form. In another aspect, Expose provides a user with the ability to display and view all open windows in a particular application in a non-overlapping manner. Specifically, when the user types the F10 key, Exposé tiles all of the open windows for the current application in a non-overlapping form while fading to a gray all of the open windows associated with other applications. This facilitates the location and selection of a previously not visible application window, but does not support user-interaction with application windows while in this mode.
While Exposé allows the user to view open windows simultaneously, multiple windows are tiled on the screen, which can still lead to some confusion. In addition Exposé is a temporary state where once a user selects one of the tiled windows, the user interface returns to the Z-order state with the selected window located on top of the Z-order.
In one proposed implementation for the MAC OS X brand operating system, thumbnail controls for minimized application windows are presented in the Dock control and the active application window was presented by itself on the desktop space not occupied by the Dock control. To select another application to open, a user could select a thumbnail control of the application window in the Dock and the system would open the application window on the Dock and minimize to the Dock the previously open application window.
It would be beneficial to provide a window management solution which allows a user to provide all application windows in a tile type format and to allow a user to switch windows in and out of focus while maintaining a tiled view of the application windows not in focus.